


No Cars Go

by gendryw4ters



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Oneshot, Swearing, after the war, ish maybe ???, late night drabbles, mentions of sex but none of the goodstuff cause i cant write it for shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 06:37:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10611291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gendryw4ters/pseuds/gendryw4ters
Summary: Even if the rest of the world would think they were out of their goddamn minds, he doesn't fucking care.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i was listening to a lot of arcade fire when i wrote this
> 
> unbeta'd and probably quite a shambles so sorry for any errors you may come across, but im posting it now in my 2:30am bravery (ready to feel that subsequent 10am regret) otherwise i never would
> 
> characters are based on the fictional representations from the show, no disrespect to the real people whatsoever x

Babe knows his situation is... Unusual at best.  

He knows that everything he's doing right now is wrong on all manner of levels. He knows his Ma would absolutely flip if she could see him, knows his Dad would cart him off to the nearest asylum in a heartbeat if he had even the slightest inkling of what was going on here. 

But as he watches the other sink into the cool depths of the river, running wet hands through thick dark hair in an attempt to remove the grime of another day's hard work, he realizes this; 

Even if the rest of the world would think they were out of their goddamn minds, he doesn't fucking care.

* * *

 

When he'd arrived back in Philly after the war, he'd never have guessed at how hard it would be to readjust to his old life. He was too skinny, too tall, for any of his old clothes to fit him, and too tired to play any games with his siblings and niblings and all of the kids he'd once loved to kick about with. He was too old for that anyways, but still too young for the alternative. Couldn't find a job, couldn't find a steady girl. His family would talk to him for hours upon hours, but he wouldn't hear a damn word of it.  

They didn't understand. The nights he'd wake up screaming, the way he'd freeze up whenever somebody asked him what the war had been like. Nobody understood, though he feels as though he should have known they wouldn't. Nobody could ever even come _close_ to understanding what he'd been through, or the person he had found himself becoming as a result. 

Nobody, that is, except for Gene. 

* * *

When he'd turned up on Gene's doorstep all those months ago, it had been without invitation; not that the fact had ever mattered to either of them.  

He wasn't entirely sure what he had been expecting from doing so- a slap for never writing back, perhaps, or a gruff "fuck off" and a face full of door. In fact, he'd sort of run through all of the possible scenarios he could have found himself a part of in his head on the train ride here. 

And yet none of them had included a kiss. 

There'd been maybe five seconds of just staring when the door of Gene's house had first swung open, before Babe had found himself yanked inside and his back thrown against the wall. After that, and countless breathless sorries and 'I missed you's and kisses more, the two of them had settled into a sort of routine.  

Gene would go to work, or at least that's what he'd tell Babe. Babe would sit at the table, scouring the newspapers for job ads whilst lamenting the fact that he had to. He knew he wasn't fit for it, not really. Any work other than holding the line felt foreign and wrong and pointless, and the way loud noises made him flinch set everybody around him on edge, as though they thought he might pull a gun from thin air and point it their way. Or worse still, at himself. That didn't go down so well in interviews. 

Gene had told him not to worry about it, that things would get better soon. 

Babe had had trouble believing that, but when the other took him into his arms and held him until the shaking stopped, he figured maybe it wasn't such a far off dream after all. 

* * *

The first time they'd had sex, there had been a full moon out. They'd been stood smoking in the garden when Gene had suggested it, almost coyly, and against all of his better judgements Babe had found himself agreeing to it. 

It was fitting, Babe had thought. After all, his Ma had warned him that the full moon could make people do crazy things. Of course she had meant that kids would get a bit wilder, and that dogs might bark a little more often. She had almost certainly had not meant _this._ He'd never done it like this before, and would've been lying if he'd said he'd known exactly how he was supposed to in the first place. His thoughts wandered briefly to wondering how Gene _did_ know, but he didn't dwell on it. It wasn't as if he hadn't fucked his way through half of Philly when he'd come home searching for something, _anything_ to distract him from the past anyways, so he thinks it'd be hypocritical of him to start making accusations or enquiries. 

And then suddenly he was no longer thinking at all, and he was coming, coming _hard,_ and his fingers were raking up Gene's spine as he gasped for air, and Gene collapsed down on top of him, breathing heavily.  

They had lain there for what had felt like hours, Babe's arms around Gene, and Gene's head nuzzled into the crook of his neck. All was silent, at first, only broken by a shaky intake of breath from Babe. 

"I don't feel like I belong here, Gene." 

They were not the words he had wanted, but they were the only ones that came. The man lazily tracing patterns against his chest glanced up at him at that, frowning. He moved as if to pull away, but Babe's hold on him remained just as strong as before as he shook his head."Not here, _here._ " He gestured around him as if that would make his meaning any clearer, only to be met with a frown once again. 

"Then go. 'm not forcing you to stay." Gene had muttered, finally mustering up the strength to push himself away from the man he'd been cuddled up to only minutes before. 

"No, I mean- _Jesus_ Gene, no, I don't mean with you," Babe had exclaimed, voice cracking with frustration. He took another deep breath, swallowing before continuing more softly than he had begun. "You're about the only thing that feels fucking right in my life. But this, being here- this whole domestic scene, _Christ_ , this whole fucking earth- I don't belong in it. I can't relax, I can't- can't fit back in. I don't want to be back out there fightin' or nothing, but I don't... I don't want to be here either. Tryna find work, tryna make friends, tryna forget everything we've been through. It doesn't feel right. Only time I ever feel right is when I'm with you, just us." He paused, then gave a hollow, bitter laugh. "Hell, if I hadn't come here when I did, I'da blown my brains out all over Ma's nice flowered walls." 

Gene was still frowning, but more thoughtfully this time, and Babe had thought it odd that he could tell the difference. "I have something to show you," he had finally replied, slowly, as though he was still thinking through each individual word as it left. 

"Yeah?" 

"Yeah," he had nodded, returning to his earlier practice of swirling his fingertips against his lover's skin. "Been working on it for a while. Wanted to make sure you wouldn't think I was crazy before I took you to it." 

"To what?" 

"You'll see," he murmured sleepily, though Babe had caught the shy smile dancing on his kiss swollen lips as he'd pulled the sheets further up around them. 

* * *

"You're fucking crazy." 

Babe's laugh of disbelief had previously been the one thing holding him back from revealing his secret in the first place, but instead of regretting his choice, Gene had found himself shrugging and laughing along with him. "Might well be." 

He'd been extremely cagey about where it was he was taking Babe when they'd climbed haphazardly into their little rowboat that morning. This wouldn't usually phase the redhead, who'd long since gotten used to the secrecy that always seemed to surround him, but today he'd been even more mysterious than usual. And it wasn't often that they used the boat in the first place, though both were reluctant to sell it. It had sat moored in the river that formed the foot of Gene's garden, and though Babe had offered to paint it many a time, looked as though it had never been new once in its entire life.   

Gene had told him to close his eyes as they had neared the destination, and Babe had complied, even though the rocking of the boat beneath him had made him a little uneasy. Gene had still forbade him from opening them even after they'd remoored, instead choosing to lift a (cursing profusely) Babe out of the boat and onto dry land with very little warning.  

When he'd finally been allowed to look around again, it had taken Babe a little while to get his bearings. They had been stood at the end of what Babe had assumed to be a garden. The garden of a very small, and yet not poorly built hut. There was a fireplace outside, and tree stumps beside it, which he figured must have been acting as chairs. 

He had turned to Gene then, furrowing his brows as he asked; "this where you've been instead of wor-" 

"Yeah." 

"You've been building this all by yoursel-" 

"Yeah." 

"For- How- _Why?_ " 

Gene had just shrugged, gesturing for Babe to take a seat. "It's like you said, I guess," he had been watching the other carefully, desperate to gauge a reaction. "Don't belong back there, with all the- all the people and the noise. Hated it. Was gonna move here on my own once it was finished, but then you showed up, and-" 

_"You're fucking crazy."_  

"Might well be," he had chuckled, scratching his neck as a blush began to creep up it. "But I guess, if you'll come with me, that'd make two of us." 

It had taken Babe all of thirty seconds to make up his mind.  

* * *

They never sold Gene's old house, deciding it was _okay_ to return there sometimes when the weather got too rough or they needed to wash something in water that wasn't running freely at the foot of their porch. They would treat those excursions almost as though they were holidays, "little vacations back into the real world," Babe had called them. But for the most part, the hut, and whatever lay in it's surroundings, was all they had. Gene had taught Babe to fish, and how to cook anything he may have successfully reeled in, and Babe had taught Gene how to laugh when things didn't always go to plan (most notably after burning all three of his first few catches). Sometimes, when the war would creep back up on them- a hunter's gunshot in the distance, or the anguished cries of his kill- they would huddle by the fire, and talk of it. Over time, it began to feel more and more like a distant memory; a bad dream. They spoke of it less and less, instead choosing to point out the constellations (Gene), or ask about growing up on Cajun food (Babe). They still wrote home occasionally, to let their families know they were still alive if nothing else. There was an unspoken understanding about those letters; that Babe wouldn't mention the living situation, and Gene wouldn't mention Babe.  

Not that it would have mattered if either of them had done so anyways. They didn't need to belong in that world anymore. They were happy, safe, _together._ And to Babe, that was all that mattered. 

"Pebble for your thoughts, _cher_."  

Babe's awoken from his daydream by the soft _thud_ of a rock landing at his feet, and glances up at Gene, who's got the same worried look in his eyes that he always gets whenever he thinks Babe has been thinking too much. 

"You ever think we're out of our minds?" 

Gene hums thoughtfully for a second, before shaking his head. "Nah. And even if everybody else in the whole wide world does, why should we fucking care?" 

**Author's Note:**

> i want to include a link to the exact house i'd sort of taken inspiration from but im not technologically advanced enough to do so, but if any of you have seen captain fantastic (which you should! you should) then imagine a less advanced version of that set up, if that makes any sense
> 
> "nibling" is the gender neutral term for nieces/nephews, i feel like maybe its a neologism but oh well
> 
> i have other works in progress that maybe someday i'd also like to publish but i'm still pretty nervous about doing things like this (it has been a LONG time since i last posted any writing anywhere online and i'm only just getting back into the swing of it), and i have a (relatively new and rarely used) blog under the same username as this (i don't know why it's game of thronesy either) if anyone has any questions or anything like that! also, please feel free to take and rewrite this idea undoubtedly better than i ever could if you should feel inclined to do so! :-) x


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